Sept. 1895.] THE ARGENTINE LIVE STOCK INDUSTRY. 



143 



quality. The price paid in Buenos Ayres to the producer is 

 8^. 10s. The trade has recently been at a standstill owing to 

 quarantine measures. 



For the European trade a first-class cross-bred steer, three 

 years and upwards, is demanded, of not less than 1,320 lbs. live 

 weight, and the price paid locally by the exporter is from 61. to 

 8^. per head. The cost of freight is dl. per head ; fodder, 

 attendance, and incidental expenses being about 3^. lOs. per 

 head. The steers realise from 16^. up to 2U. at Deptford and 

 Liverpool. 



It is with reference to the above trade that the importance of 

 the lucerne lands in Sante Fe becomes manifest. The lucerne 

 graziers buy store stock from the breeder, and keep them until 

 fit for shipment. The lucerne man calculates to fatten a store 

 steer in about four to six months, and to make a profit of about 

 11. to 11. 10s. in doing so. He can, therefore, afford to buy the 

 store steer, of a first-class quality, at from 4^1. to 61., and realise 

 a handsome profit on selling him to the exporter. Lucerne lands 

 can be stocked all the year round at the rate of one steer per 

 three acres, and the value of land in lucerne, fenced in and pro- 

 vided with a good water supply, may be taken at about 21. per 

 acre. Thus, with a good year, free from the visitation of the 

 locust, and with little expense beyond the drawing of water, the 

 grazier can make about 1^. per acre, of which at least 60 per 

 cent, is net profit. 



As to the capabilities and development of stock-breeding in 

 the Argentine Republic, Mr. H. Gibson, a prominent member of 

 the Argentine Rural Society says " there are still vast tracts of 

 land in the north of the province of Santa Fe, in the territory of 

 the Central Pampa, and all the south of the Republic, capable of 

 producing store-stock at cheap prices, and as yet unpeopled. It 

 is difficult, moreover, to indicate the limit of the lucerne growing 

 lands. Thus with, on the one hand, room to produce the store 

 animal in far greater numbers than the Republic at present 

 does, and at prices which can fall lower and still be remunerative 

 to the breeder ; and on the other hand, the spread of the lucerne 

 fields to receive this store stock, and prepare it for the consuming 

 market, I think I am almost justified in stating that the Argen- 

 tine Republic can afford to undersell the whole world's meat 

 trade, and remain sole caterer." 



The sheep stock in the Argentine is said to have received 

 greater attention at the hands of the breeder than either the 

 cattle or horses. Up to 1880, the sheep were almost entirely of 

 a merino strain, but about that period the industry of freezing 

 mutton was first instituted, and the breeders, finding the carcase 

 of the merino of little value for export, turned their attention to 

 English breeds, and particularly to the Lincoln sheep. A rapid, 

 indeed an unprecedented, change appears to have taken place 

 between 1884 to 1894, viz., the conversion of approximately 

 30,000,000 sheep from merino into Lincoln, being nearly all the 

 sheep stock of the south of the province of Buenos Ayres. The 



